The word “yard,” too, is important. He does not say Catholic _graveyard_--but _churchyard_. Holy Trinity best fills the idea of a small space attached to a building--a church--and having the commonly called “yard,” a small enclosed place--in this case, at the side of the church, right “under the humble walls.” No other Catholic churchyard in 1793, could have been “under the walls” of any church but this. St. Joseph’s had ceased to be a place of interment; St. Mary’s was, and yet is, a large graveyard. It is not a “little churchyard,” and interments cannot be said, even in imagination of poetry, to have been “under the walls” of the church, as big in 1793 as to-day, save by about twenty feet. While, of course, there was no real Evangeline or Gabriel in Philadelphia, and no real burial anywhere, the sole discussion is confined to the churchyard Longfellow saw, in 1824, and in 1847, had in mind as the burial place of the two. No place so well fills the possibilities, even the probability, as Holy Trinity’s “little churchyard,” at Sixth and Spruce. How Longfellow came to write Evangeline has been narrated; how Lowell thought the “tradition” a fit one for a story, but that Longfellow desired he be allowed to use it for a poem. In “The Neutral French or the Exiles of Nova Scotia,” by Mrs. Williams, issued in 1841, will be found the same story, but with New York as the scene of action. That doubtless was the source of suggestion to Longfellow. MARTIN I. J. GRIFFIN. PHILADELPHIA. [Illustration] CAPTAIN JAMES DUNCAN’S DIARY OF THE SIEGE OF YORKTOWN Colonel Hazen’s regiment was the second regiment of the kind and was known as “Congress’s Own,” because under authority of a resolution of Congress of January 20, 1776, permission was granted to enlist one thousand Canadians or more for one year, as was done in a previous case under Colonel James Livingston. This regiment was not chargeable to any State, and hence its name, “Congress’s Own.” The troops were sometimes called “Canadian forces.” Colonel Moses Hazen was appointed Colonel and Edward Antill Lieutenant Colonel, by Congress. In the early part of 1776 about 500 Canadians were secured for the regiment; but the evacuation of Canada reduced the number to less than 100 by the time it reached Albany. Colonels Hazen and Antill then went to Philadelphia to lay the matter before Congress. As a result they received authority to recruit anywhere within the United States. Hazen went to New York and the New England States; Antill to Pennsylvania and the Middle States. The latter was the more successful in securing recruits.